County manager steps in to seek proposals for Hazleton building

MARK MORAN / THE CITIZENS’ VOICE Luzerne County Manager Robert Lawton has called a staff meeting for this morning to put together a request for proposals on the former Security Savings Bank in Hazleton in time to have results for a voting session next month.

Despite an intensive lobbying campaign against putting the former Security Savings Bank in Hazleton up for public sale, Luzerne County officials plan to do just that.

Extensive debate over whether to give the property at 25-31 W. Broad St. to the City of Hazleton, as prior commissioners reportedly agreed to do, ended in a split vote during a special council meeting Tuesday night that ensured no action would be taken to transfer the property. As a result, county Manager Robert Lawton immediately announced he called a staff meeting for this morning to put together a request for proposals on the property in time to have results for a voting session next month.

Hazleton leaders are seeking to swap the building in exchange for the city letting the county off the hook for a $290,000 lien on the Broad Street Business Exchange. Commissioners reportedly agreed to the swap in 2011, but a deal was never finalized — clearing the way now for council to do as it chooses.

Councilman Rick Williams argued that seeking a request for proposals provides a level playing field and that failing to do so risks returning to the “bad practices of the past” where such transactions aren’t conducted in a public manner. The issue should be decided by good public policy, not based on a “legal snafu,” he said.

“I challenge the applicants to face the competition,” Williams said. “Don’t be afraid of it. I think you’ve got a very impressive proposal. But let’s see what else the world has, and we can say to the citizens, ‘We did our due diligence.’”

Council’s failure to deliver the property without going public means other entities will now be able to compete with the plan Hazleton leaders put forward, which entails converting the building to house the Hazleton Art League under the name of City Arts Center and the management of the Downtown Hazleton Alliance for Progress.

The move flies in the face of an intense lobbying campaign urging council not to put the property up for public bid, with Hazleton Mayor Joseph Yannuzzi, Greater Hazleton CAN DO and the Greater Hazleton Historical Society and Museum among those saying the move would devastate long-range plans to improve the downtown that have long assumed the property would eventually go to the city.

State Rep. Tarah Toohil, R-Butler Township, joined the chorus earlier Tuesday when she sent council an email urging members against issuing an RFP.

“If this building falls under public advertising, the sale may result in undesirable consequence and could potentially derail the revitalization plan the City of Hazleton has been preparing for the downtown,” Toohil wrote.

Most council members expressed support for the project, although some questioned the urgency in signing over a property to Hazleton without getting competing bids for the site, noting council could pick a bid based on community impact and not merely the highest sale price.

During an exchange that began with Councilman Harry Haas questioning why the exchange is now “suddenly a big emergency,” Yannuzzi explained that the 2011 agreement never moved forward because he refused to “accept it” with a dilapidated structure attached and damaged electrical infrastructure.

“I thought I had the agreement but I wasn’t going to sign on the dotted line to accept it because they didn’t rip it down,” Yannuzzi said, adding that the county has since demolished the attached building and installed electrical wiring.

“What I just heard is that for at least a year after you weren’t ready to sign on the dotted line to finalize this agreement anyway,” Councilwoman Linda McClosky Houck said. “I think it’s not the same agreement that you thought you were discussing in 2011.”

Councilman Stephen A. Urban made the motion to give the bank to Hazleton, a proposal that failed in a 5-5 vote. Houck and Williams were joined by council members Jim Bobeck, Harry Haas and Eileen Sorokas in voting against it.

Hazleton City Council President Jack Mundie later said he had some concerns about the costs of the project to city residents but that he wasn’t opposed to Lawton’s issuing an RFP on the property.

“I don’t think that’s such a bad idea,” Mundie told council during public comment. “I’ve been worrying about the taxpayers of Hazleton — us getting that building and being stuck with it like you guys have been stuck with it.”

Council is set to decide on the results of the RFP at its meeting Aug. 26.

570-821-2058, @cvjimhalpin

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